Shepard Krech III is a professor of anthropology at Brown University. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island,
and in Maine.
Review
"Krech is more than just a conventional-wisdom overturner; he has a serious larger point to make. . . .
Concepts like ecology, waste, preservation, and even the natural (as distinct from human) world are entirely anachronistic
when applied to Indians in the days before the European settlement of North America."
--Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker
"Offers a more complex portrait of Native American peoples, one that rejects mythologies, even those that
both European and Native Americans might wish to embrace."
--Washington Post
"A good story and first-rate social science."
--New York Times Book Review
W.W. Norton & Co. Web Site, April, 2002
Summary
The idea of the Native American living in perfect harmony with nature is one of the most cherished contemporary
myths. But how truthful is this larger-than-life image?
According to anthropologist Shepard Krech, the first humans in North America demonstrated all of the intelligence,
self-interest, flexibility, and ability to make mistakes of human beings anywhere. As Nicholas Lemann put it in
The New Yorker, "Krech is more than just a conventional-wisdom overturner; he has a serious larger point to
make. . . . Concepts like ecology, waste, preservation, and even the natural (as distinct from human) world are
entirely anachronistic when applied to Indians in the days before the European settlement of North America."
